New Worcester Lab Brings “Real” Crime to Campus

/by American Alarm Blogging Team

New Worcester Lab Brings “Real” Crime to CampusIs that guy passed-out drunk, or is that a dead body? Ketchup, or blood? What’s going on here?

On Becker College campus, the confusion is understandable thanks to the new John Dorsey Sr. Crime Scene Laboratory, named after one of the college’s longest-serving law professors. The 1100 square-foot lab is designed to mimic the horror and authenticity of real crime scenes, and according to Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Earley, a friend of Professor Dorsey, “I got the heebie-jeebies. It was that realistic.” The idea behind the sometimes gruesome vignettes is to give students a leg up in the real world, especially if they’re looking at a career in law enforcement or forensics.

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Olympic Dreams, Security Nightmares: Can Boston Host 2024?

/by American Alarm Blogging Team

Olympic Dreams, Security Nightmares: Can Boston Host 2024?Boston is going for gold with a Summer Olympics effort, with supporters claiming the city can handle infrastructure challenges like massive air travel influx and transit congestion. But there’s another concern, one that could tip the balance from Olympic dream to nightmare: security.

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Gun Violence Goes Under the Microscope in New Research

/by American Alarm Blogging Team

Gun Violence Goes Under the Microscope in New ResearchInvolved in a serious car accident? There are state and federal databases to record what happened, how many people were injured and government money spent to discover new ways to prevent high-risk collisions.

Had a problem with gun violence? Until recently, there was virtually no federal funding for a similar system, and patients admitted to local ERs essentially vanished from sight. In large part, this was due to fear that a database of gun-related injuries was just gun control in disguise, thanks to an executive order from President Obama, money has started flowing from the CDC to state agencies interested in expanding their national reporting system. The hope? That a better understanding of why and how gun violence occurs will help limit the amount.

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National Crime Rates Down, But Police Spending Up: Is This “New Math”?

/by American Alarm Blogging Team

National Crime Rates Down, But Police Spending UpAccording to the statistics, violent crime rates are down across the United States, and in cities like Providence, Rhode Island, rates have been dropping for the past six years. Meanwhile, studies find that overall police spending is up and municipalities are fighting to keep budgets in line. Is this the “new math?”

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Boston Mayor Pushes for New Crime-Fighting Technology

/by American Alarm Blogging Team

Boston Mayor Pushes for New Crime-Fighting Technology Over the last 10 years, Boston has amassed an inventory of 336 unsolved murders. Now, Mayor Martin J. Walsh, District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, and high-ranking members of the Boston police department are promising change: what’s in store to make the city safer?

According to the Boston Herald, one initiative is the creation of a community advisory group which will partner community leaders with police to help address crime in specific neighborhoods. Taking this idea a step further is the privately-operated StreetSafe Boston which looks for ways to assist troubled youth at risk of becoming repeat offenders in adulthood.

There’s a clear mandate here to create a more community-minded Boston, one that focuses on neighborhoods rallying together behind disenfranchised youth to take back control of their streets and help limit crime through accountability and understanding — but that’s just the beginning.

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Providence Election Spurs New Focus on Public Safety

/by American Alarm Blogging Team

Providence Election Spurs New Focus on Public SafetyThe mayoral race in Providence is heating up — both Republican and Democratic candidates are calling out opponents who they say haven’t done enough. Their big concern? Crime.

According to a recent WPRI.com article, the crime reduction plan forwarded by Republican Michael Solomon came under fire from Democrat Brett Smiley, who says that his opponent “has not provided any real leadership on public safety.” Solomon’s campaign manager shot back at Smiley, calling his statement “more sad, empty rhetoric from someone who hasn’t even lived in the city for ten years.”

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Untested Alarm System Costs Siskiyou County $3 Million

/2 Comments/by American Alarm Blogging Team

Is your burglar alarm system programmed with a communication timer test?

Just ask officials at the Siskiyou County Courthouse in California, who were shocked to discover that the failure of the security system protecting $3 million in gold resulted in a clean getaway for the thieves who simply smashed a hole in the glass case protecting the historical artifacts and grabbed everything they could.

The gold nuggets had been a theft target once before in 1979, when the silent alarm functioned as intended and the would-be marauders were apprehended roughly a block away from the courthouse with the illicit wares in their possession. This time, however, the vibration alarm that was meant to protect the irreplaceable gold nuggets – some of which date back to the town’s founding – did not respond at all. A town spokesperson stated that the system had been properly armed, and that the county was working with its security provider to get to the bottom of the glitch.

Perhaps the most telling aspect of the sad story surrounding the Siskiyou gold is a footnote at the bottom of the article that mentions an annual security alarm test schedule. According to the Courthouse, the last test occurred in August of 2011, nearly seven months before the February theft.

There is an important lesson that business and property owners can learn from the tragic tale of the Siskiyou theft, and that is that it’s not enough to rely on a single alarm system test every 12 months. So much can happen within a year’s time, especially in a heavily-trafficked space such as a courthouse or a retail space, that it really becomes necessary to perform an alarm system test at least once per quarter, if not once per month.

American Alarm programs a timer test with its business security systems that can send communications weekly or daily, depending on the type of signals being monitored. If our central station operators do not receive a signal, we contact the owner immediately to determine the cause of the missed communication, and find a solution to the issue.

It costs nothing to make sure that your alarm system is functioning up to spec – what’s  the price tag of not knowing? In the case of Siskiyou County, the figure would seem to be $3 million.